On Friday, March 13, 2020, RBHS administration announced the closing of the school and implementation of E-Learning until April 6, 2020. The closing comes amongst the procedures to keep the Coronavirus, now a global pandemic, stagnated. Students will be doing E-Learning for all of their classes, including AP classes. 

The College Board and RBHS have since been flooded with questions on what will be happening with their May AP Exams and scheduled SAT Exams. On March 20, the College Board announced that AP Exams will be happening, but they will be vastly different from times before. The College Board has set up 45-minute online free response exams to be taken at home for this year. While AP Exams being taken at home is not a new concept because they’ve always been available for students in uncommon situations, it will be different as to having everyone test at once. Along with that, each subject will have two different testing dates to give students flexibility. 

They’ve also discussed the situation with colleges, they both want to ensure that students get the college-credit they deserve. 

“These solutions are meant to be as simple and lightweight as possible for both students and teachers — without creating additional burdens for school leaders during this time,” the College Board said. 

They have also announced that the context on the tests will only reach to when school closed, early March. For example, the AP U.S. History Exam will only cover units one through seven, leaving out units eight and nine. This has been done to give students peace of mind and more time to freshen themselves up on those earlier units. 

To further support students, the College Board will be holding online live AP courses, starting on March 25, 2020, for each subject. With that, they are going to make more practice resources available online as well. The schedule for each subject and more details can be found on: Information for AP Students Affected by Coronavirus (COVID-19)

As for the College Board’s standardized entry exam, the SAT, the following dates have been cancelled: the March 28, 2020, make-up exam (initially the March 14 exam), and the May 2, 2020 exam. Currently, the June 6, 2020 exam is still on. In terms of RBHS, our April 14 all school testing day (SAT for juniors and PSAT for underclassmen) is still scheduled. RB’s SAT Saturday morning Prep. sessions for juniors, though, have been cancelled. 

Another popular test is the ACT. It’s the same as the SAT but it is no longer required by the state. Still, students take it for college admissions purposes. There was a test scheduled for April 4, 2020, that’s been cancelled and rescheduled for June 13, 2020. More information on that can be found on: ACT Reschedules April 2020 National ACT Test Date to June

“ACT is committed to making every effort to help those students impacted by this test date change, particularly those high school seniors who are facing deadlines for fall 2020 college admission,” ACT CEO Marten Roorda said. 

All this information is new, sudden, and subject to be changed and further developed as time goes. Specifics for the AP Exams, such as exam-schedules, free-response questions, and answers for other unanswered questions, will be given out on Friday, April 3, 2020. 

RBHS will be doing the best that they can to support and inform students, teachers, and parents. 

“This information is new to all affected schools. RBHS will be monitoring information and we will share new information as we receive it,” school testing director Marc Helgeson said.